World War Z has had a lot of bad buzz. Like, a lot of bad buzz. But it turns out that the buzz doesn’t fit the reality: World War Z is actually a lot of fun and surprisingly well put together as an action film.

First of all, no, it’s not the book. But if you set the book aside, or treat it as the script intends — the story of the guy who wrote the book in the first place — it’s actually pretty solid.

In fact, the infamous production trouble doesn’t show at all. This movie is surprisingly tight — clocking in at under two hours — and Marc Forster, the director, can deftly juggle a suspense scene and an action scene. It also helps that the CGI zombies are, despite being a centerpiece of the trailer, actually kept to a minimum. There are a lot of practical effects here, and Forster even manages to get around the PG-13 restriction on gore in some really creative ways; the first time a zombie clamps down hard on steel with its teeth, you’re gonna cringe.

The opening scenes in Philadelphia actually work a lot better than the trailer would indicate, partially because Forster makes a point of making the zombies hard to pick out, at first. These aren’t obviously shambling undead, and in fact you don’t get a good look at them until later in the movie. Also, they actually say “zombie” in this movie and they largely dump the siege movie conceit: this is a movie constantly on the run.

That said, there are a few problems here. Brad Pitt’s character doesn’t do much from the end of the first act until the end of the third act. He just kind of stands around and looks like Brad Pitt finding exposition for the audience while other people shoot zombies — when he’s not busy getting other people killed — and the movie coasts on that a little too much. Secondly, by the end of the first act you will be baffled he didn’t chuck his family off the top of that Newark apartment building. His kids are annoying and frankly pretty stupid, in the most annoying horror-movie cliche way possible, and his wife isn’t much better as a character. Mireille Enos, the actress playing his wife, gets almost nothing to do but hug their kids, and his family seems to exist to establish that Brad Pitt’s a cool guy you can relate to.

Similarly, the attempt by the movie to make the zombie plague a metaphor for larger social problems doesn’t really click. The point’s easy to get but the movie doesn’t really earn its social commentary. But as spectacle, and as an overall zombie movie, it’s actually a lot of fun, with some inventive direction and plenty of action. It’s not perfect, but it moves, it spent a lot of money putting together its elaborate action sequences, and it’s a lot of fun.

In short, it’s a great summer weekend movie and a great shakeup for the zombie genre.

My wife and her friend maneuvered their way into them seeing this and me babysitting her husband and their kid. I am not good at negotiating. Although, I will get a Pacific Rim viewing out of it, so I’ll take that trade.

That’s a pretty narrow view. I love the book. But I also understand how script-writing and filming work. And way the story is told in the book (short stories that act as fragments in a larger mosaic) simply would not work in a movie. First of all, the book does not have a main character. And no, the guy compiling all the stories is NOT the main character. While plenty of people would love a movie that is basically a bunch of short stories told in order, Hollywood isn’t after ‘plenty of people’. They make movies for millions of people. And millions of people need a main character (whose story-arc isn’t disjointed) to follow for 90 minutes or two hours or whatever. So get over the fact that the movie isn’t the same is the book. It was never going to be. Because it could never be.

“So get over the fact that the movie isn’t the same is the book. It was never going to be. Because it could never be.”

Then they shouldn’t have called it “World War Z”. That is the name of a book. A recognizable name. When the studio bought the rights to the book/name, they bought the obligation to give us that story. Like the new Matt Damon movie, “Elysium”? There’s a reason that film is not called “Ender’s Game”.

I’m conflicted with this argument, I can see and agree with both sides. to be honest though, Dan’s right, I saw the movie and i liked it a lot. it was very well done, surprisingly.

at the end of the day I don’t see a HUGE problem with them calling it “World War Z.” how many movies have there ever been that take the basic premise of a book, and then change it to fit a 2-hour cinematic experience instead of what you get from a lengthy novel? Shit, look at Lord Of the Rings. from what I understand there’s a thousand things they kept out of the movies from the books just because there wasn’t enough time to add it.

Just check one of the review aggregation sites like metacritic. They have it as a 62 out of 100 so more people are on the positive side for this film. I am mad that it isn’t the book but it looks pretty good so I will probably see it.

It is great for what it is, which is an action movie that moves fast enough for you not to care too much about the problems. Like I said, there are flaws with it as a movie, but it’s hard for me to fault a movie that makes an effort to be something different with zombies and actually pulls it off pretty well.

I watched it last night, and I am a WWZ fan- read the paperback, sent it to my best friend stationed in Iraq and he read it and had a few other officers read it, then i listened to the audiobook, read the e-book three times, read the manual and short stories, etc.

I was prepared to be disappointed so went in with low expectations and I have to say it was a pretty good film. It’s no World War Z- they should have just called it “Zombies Take Over” and the complaint level would have been cut in half. Honestly, aside from one Israeli dude I don’t know if any of the characters actually exist in the book.

Pitt does a good job, his family was pointless, little Tommy is terribly underused, and the scope is impressive.

Take this from a guy who’s profile pic is King Kong slow dancing with Godzilla- I like to watch my world destroyed by monsters and this movie delivered that.

Now I can only hope in five years FX ponies up for a docu-style mini series that does the book justice.

I’d have to disagree. I felt this was among the worst of the summer. It was a nut-less thriller that kept the camera away from the most interesting moments. Also, how idiotic can a film get? World War Z tests that theory with some of the most stupid character/plot moments I’ve seen in quite some time.

I had one issue with the movie: Brad, why when you had the choice of taking the wounded chick soldier or one of the other 2 pretty healthy soldiers, did you make the wrong choice?
Other than that I loved it. The 3D zombies worked when they were used and I thought the solution they ended up discovering was pretty original. I have the book in my mobile library but have yet to read it and only saw the flick because I love Pitt’s work. So maybe I’m the audience that the film was supposed to attract in the first place

Actually, not so much. “Die Hard” is a far better movie on an absolute scale because it has a tighter plot, tighter characterizations, and a better focus. John McClane is an active hero, where Pitt, as I noted, is a passive one, barely a hero at all for a good chunk of the movie. Although that is a siege movie, which WWZ isn’t.

Honestly a better comparison between this and the Die Hard franchise is “Die Hard With A Vengeance”, because they have more similar structures. And DHWAV is actually a better movie in that regard, as well; again, better characterization, tighter plot. But if we’re talking summer action movies, WWZ is pretty solid. Deal with it.

I would say that the fact that they apparently kept the actual zombie scenes to a necessary minimum, (That’s what I got out of the review. Correct me if I wrong) makes it pretty close to the concept of the book more than the trailers led me to believe. The book to me (aside from maybe the Battle of Yonkers) was much more about how humans (individually and as a society) deal with a potential apocalyptic disaster from its first appearance to its eventual defeat. The zombies are kind of unique hook on the whole concept of disaster novels. If the movie touches on that whole storyline, I may give it a little more leeway on the use of the title.

Honestly, it’s a pretty straightforward structure: Action scene, exposition to set up action scene, repeat. The movie has an odd scaling down structure where we pare down the events more and more as things go on. But the action setpieces are so good it’s hard to complain too much.

People who are saying World War Z “sucks” or that it’s “fucking awful” are certainly entitled to their opinion. And I’m entitled to the opinion that those people are complete fucking retards.
Now, let be clear about this: I am a massive fan of the book. I do not typically like ‘fast’ zombies. And I was pretty adamant that this movie was going to be terrible based on just about everything I heard regarding it before I went to see it.
All that being said, I went, I saw, and it was pretty fucking good overall. I did not like the ending (the last 10 minutes or so), but everything up to that point was pretty awesome as far as action movies go. I think people who are shitting on this movie are straining so hard to shit on this movie they might rupture their colon. And I kinda hope they do because, like I said, those people are fucking retarded.

Agree 100%. Those action sequences / set pieces were AWESOME. I also agree 100% on “no great character development” yada yada, but whatevs I was satisfied with this movie. The one thing I was worried about before seeing the movie was the presence of “I Am Legend-esque” zombies; i.e. uber-animated and non-believeable zombies. These were really legit zombies. There wasn’t one time I pictured a green screen, which I was distracted by for almost all of I Am Legend.

Bottom line I agree with this review; it was first and foremost a good action flick, and secondly a good zombie & sci-fi movie.

Hmmmm. I was so excited to see this film, then my excitement was dashed upon the rocks, and now I may just go see a matinee. I’m sure that as an action flick it’s great, I was just really hoping to see placed onto the big screen all the things (or at least a couple of them) that made the book such a great read. I’ll have to go decide on my own. I guess the bigger question is if the writer was going to ok such a departure from the book as well as B.P., why not simply have it stand alone as a script with a different name? I would have still gone to see it. I was waylaid by the back and forth regarding how far away from the book it’s been outed to be.

look, I’m definitely a fan of the book. the problem here is that the book is one thing, testimonials over a period of time from many different people. let’s all agree that wouldn’t really work as a 2-hr movie that’s supposed to be driven in part by caring about the character(s) the movie follows, yeah? not for nothing but it would feel like a documentary. it would be boring.

so there’s nothing wrong at all with taking the basic premise of a movie and restructuring it to fit within the context of a cinematic experience. this happens *all the time.” like literally, all the time. so if you’re upset because the WWZ movie isn’t exactly like the WWZ book, stop being a baby about it. The Walking Dead tv show differs heavily from the Walking Dead comic at times; yet both are awesome and both work. chill.

the movie works. the suspenseful parts are super suspenseful (South Korea base scene and the lab scene at the end, holy shit). the action-y parts are super action-y (the fall of Jerusalem was intense as fuck, as was the Philly scene in the beginning. I get why Pitt’s character’s family was needed but they anchored the movie down a bit. I felt bad for the woman who played his wife, she didn’t get to do much of anything except have a phone in her hand and look worried. same with his “boss.”

World War Z with Brad Pitt. Number one movie review: WORLD WAR Z SUCKED . Don’t waste your hard earned money on such an unworthy movie and so negative an experience. For one–you will be very sorry you didn’t listen to me–any positive review of this movie would have to come from a paid endorser or a hyper-violent highly-desensitized idiot / *ssh*le. PG13 is wrong. This should be R restricted, if not simply restricted to the dump. Millions of dollars wasted by Hollystupidwood tools for more modern day horror/violence programming (an understatement) featuring several talented actors who should have known better. Maybe Pitt desperately needed money (as if), because he had no worthy dialogue, played an absolutely uninteresting and average 2-dimensional character, and served to be a tool for encouraging violence, and yet more stupidity, in young, (and old) impressionable/programmable screen-zombie viewers.
This movie or the book it was written after is for those who ignore the reality of media-programming that is clearly perpetuating the escalating violence, and hence like to fill their conscious and subconscious minds with violent and disgustingly morbid concepts and imagery/actions. It is for those who will be most inclined to condemn my review (believing that such horror “doesn’t effect them in any serious way”) and who simultaneously love mindless crap for dialog, predictable plot and totally unrealistic scenarios intended to scare the bored #$% out of viewers. It will help too if you have never seen a GOOD movie in your life. I hope you ask for your money back when you walk out of the theater, if you failed to heed my warning. The media and gadget obsessed drivel-consuming public deserve better, even if they seem to be zombies themselves. We vote with our dollars. Wait until Brad chooses a worthy story to see hi on the big screen. And if you read and liked the book, well–you might enjoy wasting money on it because you enjoyed wasting your days away reading about such a stupid and violent concept to begin with.